Elevators can make us all experience tension-filled moments in many ways. Especially people who are afraid to the degree of phobia do not prefer to use elevators unless they have to. Because even people who do not have a phobia can be alarmed even in short-term failures in the elevator.
While traveling in it, various fear scenarios circulate in our brains and sometimes we ask ourselves, “Is the air inside enough?” We begin to ask questions such as: We answer this question, which has crossed our minds at least once, in our content today.
Let’s consider an average elevator…
Elevators used in our country have to comply with certain standards. Of course, these standards also include the minimum dimensions that elevators should have. Accordingly, an elevator must have a width of at least 120 cm and a height of at least 210 cm.
Let’s do a little calculation with this information.
The interior of an average elevator has a volume of 3,024 liters. However, since we are in this elevator, we have to subtract the volume we cover from this number.
The volume occupied by a person is around 65 liters on average. In other words, if we think that we are alone in the elevator, the total area where we can breathe air will have a volume of 2.959 liters.
This number we get gives us the volume of air inside the elevator. But we need oxygen and therefore we have to calculate the ‘amount of oxygen’ in the rest of us in the elevator. Since we know that there is 21% oxygen in the air; When we stay in the elevator, we will have about 621 liters of oxygen.
How long will this oxygen be enough for us?
The average person consumes about 25 liters of oxygen per hour. This means that the oxygen in the elevator, which we assume to be locked, will be enough for us for about 25 hours. So if you’re locked in an elevator, there’s a long period of time you can expect to be rescued.
However, one important point should not be missed here: How many people were you locked in the elevator with?
Let’s assume that you are getting on a minimum size elevator with 4 people (maximum person capacity); Naturally, the amount of oxygen inside will decrease, but oxygen consumption will increase. In this case, the amount of oxygen inside decreases by an average of 100 liters per hour. In this terrible scenario, the oxygen of the 4 people staying in the elevator will run out in a short time like 5-6 hours.
Elevators are not exactly ‘airtight’ designed and there is a ventilation system against such situations. For this reason, it is very difficult to exhaust the air inside; However, in a scenario such as a malfunctioning ventilation system, a large number of people inside, or a small elevator, it is possible to run out of oxygen.
Of course, there are also measures taken against such situations.
It has been made mandatory to have at least one ’emergency elevator’ in every building whose height exceeds 51.50 meters. These elevators automatically go to the predetermined emergency floor and open their doors in case of an emergency or a malfunction.
They also have an emergency exit (usually located at the top of the cab). However, we recommend that you do not use this emergency exit alone and without knowing where you are in the elevator shaft. Because this emergency exit is generally used by firefighters.
It should not be forgotten that we take an ‘average’ number in all our calculations. All these numbers will vary even according to how many kilos the people inside. For this reason, if you use elevators frequently, it is useful to make sure that they are maintained in accordance with the regulations and that the emergency and ventilation buttons are working.
What happens to you when you’re locked in a car and you don’t get oxygen? The answer is in our content below:
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